The Tit-Bits Phenomenon: George Newnes, New Journalism and the Periodical TextsAuthor(s): Kate JacksonReviewed work(s):Source: Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Fall, 1997), pp. 201-226Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Research Society for VictorianPeriodicalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20082998 .Accessed: 08/05/2012 11:49

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The Tit-Bits Phenomenon: George Newnes, New Journalism and the

Periodical Texts

KATE JACKSON

JL here is one kind of journalism which directs the affairs of nations; it makes and

unmakes cabinets; it upsets governments, builds up Navies and does many other

great things. It is magnificent. This is your journalism. There is another kind of

journalism which has no such great ambitions. It is content to plod on, year after

year, giving wholesome and harmless entertainment to crowds of hardworking

people, craving for a little fun and amusement. It is quite humble and unpreten

tious. This is my journalism.1

Thus did George Newnes describe his contribution to periodical litera

ture in 1890, when separating from W.T. Stead in their joint venture The

Review of Reviews. Newnes was to become one of Britain's first media

magnates, publishing a huge number and variety of publications. But it was through his first publication, Tit-Bits, that he established his place in

British journalism. One of the most significant emphases of the developing metacriticism

of periodical research is an awareness of the uniquely interactive and self

referential form of the periodical text.2 The periodical text is in many

ways an 'open' text which offers creative potential to its readers. It repre sents an active and dynamic process of communication, a mechanism of

exchange between the popular press and the popular mind. It functions as

social discourse rather than as direct social statement. This paper is an

attempt to demonstrate the ways in which the weekly paper Tit-Bits func

tioned within this paradigm of social discourse, with special reference to

its creator and editor, George Newnes. It characterises Newnes as the

reader's friend, adviser, and representative (drawing upon the Editor's

textual expositions upon this theme): an editor interested in editor-reader

interaction and in supplying practical advice for daily problems. Like

other editors of the period, Newnes had an interest in developing, publi

202 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

cising, and promoting the text of Tit-Bits as the site of a community of

mutual responsibility, and he did so in such a way as to create one of the

most successful examples of the so-called 'New Journalism'. The management of limited time (within limited space)

- the ethos of

work-discipline which E.P. Thompson has so clearly explained - was the

very raison d'etre of Tit-Bits. "It is impossible for any man in the busy times of the present", opened the Editor when it appeared on the publish

ing scene on October 22, 1881, "to even glance at any large number of the

immense variety of books and papers which have gone on accumulating, until now their number is fabulous." "It will be the business of the con

ductors of Tit-Bits to find out from this immense field of literature the

best things that have been said or written, and weekly to place them

before the public for one penny."3 The notion of industrial time, implicit in Newnes' sermonette upon the two types of journalism, permeated the

text from the outset. The Editor's opening comments invoked the lan

guage of industrialisation, conjuring up images of oversupply and surplus

stockpiling. The editor's "business" was to rationalise: to manufacture a

marketable commodity for the busy consumer with limited time and lim

ited means. Tit-Bits reduced the complexities of modern life, distilling, and synthesising information relevant to its readers after the fashion of

the more middle-and upper-class nineteenth-century Review but in such a way as to appeal to an upper-working and lower-middle class audience.

A series of 'Literary Excerpts', drawn from various well-known authors,

mostly middle-class canonical writers such as Dickens, Disraeli,

Macaulay, and Arnold, exemplified this process of manufactured synthe sis.

So who were the 'crowds of hardworking people' whom Newnes iden

tified as his audience? According to all the indications given in the texts, in the language, competitions, illustrations, and formal characteristics, the

readership of Tit-Bits consisted of a lower-middle and aspiring middle

class, largely commuting, often salary-earning, self-helping public. Many were 'constant subscribers': middle-class readers with a regular wage and

the means to subscribe. Competition prizes and contribution payments offered in this paper were expressed in guineas, a fact which carried class

and professional implications. They appealed to a class of reader in pos session of a salary (always expressed in these terms) as opposed to a wage

(expressed in pounds, shilling and pence). The success of the '"Tit-Bits

Villa" Competition' reflected the aspirations of readers towards home

ownership, an essentially middle-class and aspiring middle-class ideal; and the 'Tit-Bits Insurance Scheme' was an indication that the audience of

the paper was a commuting population, a pool of potential readers that

substantially increased in the late-nineteenth century.4 This class was

often the backbone of university extension courses and vocational

KATE JACKSON 203

evening classes, the taste for which was met by Newnes in the 'Tit-Bits

Inquiry Column'; and of new constituency organisations of both the

major political parties, a fact which seems strongly to have influenced the

language and editorial style of Tit-BitsJ It was a class that was rapidly

expanding in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, and one to

which Newnes himself belonged (as a commercial traveller), before rising to the top of the professional middle class: a self-made man.6

A pictorial canvas titled 'A Few Incidents in Connection with Tit-Bits'

provided a visual representation of the readership of that publication. It

depicted well-dressed, bonneted women, obviously of the middle class; men in bowler hats, top-hats, collars, ties, waistcoats, and black suits that were the characteristic attire of the same class; and well-dressed children

wearing hats and the latest in sailor-suit fashion. Clerical types, distin

guishable by their hats and collars, were also among those that appeared. This, it seems, was the 'crowd' to whom Newnes sought to appeal. Signif icantly, Newnes' readers were depicted visually, as well as represented

discursively (through the competitions and correspondence columns), in

the text of this publication. (See Figure 1).

Acknowledged by many historians and contemporaries to be the most

popular penny paper of the late-nineteenth century, Tit-Bits appeared on

the publishing scene on October 22, 1881. It was essentially a paper of the

miscellany variety that became popular in the late nineteenth century: a

sixteen page patchwork of advice, humorous anecdotes, romantic fiction, statistical information, historical explanation, advertisement, legal detail,

quips and queries, and reader correspondence. Competitions were a cen

tral feature. Regular columns and serials were interspersed with short

jokes and sallies of the kind frequently furnished to newspaper and maga zines by literary types. Its readership was essentially the expanding lower-middle and upper-working classes. It catered to the male, female, and juvenile reader, the family circle and the white-collar commuter.

The average weekly circulation of Tit-Bits during the years of Newnes' involvement (1881-1910) was 400,00 to 600,000 copies, but this figure fluctuated as circulation-boosting schemes came and went. By 1890,

according to Geraldine Beare, its sales had exceeded 1/2 million, and by 1893 it was considered to be the world's most popular penny paper.7 An

offer to donate ?10,000 to the Hospitals Fund if readers took the circula tion of the paper to 1 million, resulted in weekly circulation of 850,000 in

1889.8 A competition in Easter Week, 1897, increased circulation to

671,00o.9 These figures were on par with the other most successful papers of the Tit-Bits variety, Answers and Pearson's Weekly, also with weekly circulation figures of 400,000-600,000.n Tit-Bits also maintained a sub stantial overseas circulation.

Newnes quickly established a successful format for Tit-Bits, and he

3

KATE JACKSON 20 5

varied it little in the course of the magazine's publication. Page 1 con

tained jokes; pages 2 and 3 - General Anecdotes; page 4

- Continental

Tit-Bits; page 5 -

General Anecdotes, page 6 - Inquiry Column; pages 7

and 8 - General Anecdotes; page 9 - The Prize Tit-Bit; pages 10, 11, 12,

13 - General Anecdotes, humorous and otherwise; page 14

- Tit-Bits of

Legal Information; page 15 - Tit-Bits of General Information; page 16 -

General Anecdotes. From 1885 a column entitled 'Answers to Corre

spondents' was featured on page 13. On the front page, in a very visible

position in the top left-hand corner, were notices to readers about

upcoming and current competitions conducted by Tit-Bits.

In the Tit-Bits Inquiry Column, short questions were published each

week with answers appearing two weeks afterwards. 'Any question, on

any subject, may be asked', announced the editor in No. 19, 'and each

question will be published in the "Inquiry Column"'. Readers might

'depend upon receiving accurate replies'.11 The column, with its question and answer format, reflected the familiarity of the kind of exchange requi site for the examination format to an audience that was newly integrated into a system of compulsory schooling. As if to make the connection

clearer, the best student - the reader who answered the largest number of

questions correctly over a period of three months - received a reward of 10 guineas from the editor-teacher. The range of 'Tit-Bits of General

Information' was broad, and reflects the preoccupation of this society with collecting statistics, with self-assessment, and with the measurement

and statistical organisation of progress and prosperity. As Tit-Bits evolved, it incorporated more original material, carrying an

invitation to readers to send in literary contributions in a kind of journal istic recruiting campaign. In each issue appeared the announcement:

TO LITTERATEURS

The price we pay for original contributions specially written for Tit-Bits is

ONE GUINEA PER COLUMN

Thus began a tradition which was to lead Newnes to establish the highly successful Strand Magazine in 1890. The first serial to be published was a

fictional piece by James Payn entitled 'THE WORD AND THE WILL'.12 By 1890, the format of the paper had evolved even further. On

September 27, 1890, remuneration of ?1,000 was offered for a story of 40

50 chapters averaging 2,500 words each, to be published later in book

form by the proprietor of Tit-Bits. The Editor was thus recruitment

officer and employer, and Tit-Bits represented a form of exchange between employer and wage-earner

- the 'cash nexus'

- that was charac

teristic of urban industrial life. In 1889, serial fiction, a form which

2o6 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

engaged reader response on a weekly basis in a way which often allowed

the reading public to mediate in the production of the story, was intro

duced into Tit-Bits as an experiment in literary publishing. Tit-Bits was commercial in origin and format, and inclusive in style and

content. Newnes' publishing genius lay largely in his ability to create

appealing, marketable concepts. But the attraction of Newnes' paper was, at the same time, the way in which it offered connection, representation, and creative potential to readers, and enabled Newnes to establish a

responsive editorial presence. Tit-Bits functioned as the focus of a popu lar cultural movement, a source of cultural identity, a popular social edu

cator, a legal and moral bond between readers and editor, and a pluralistic discursive sphere. It was a publication that was at once innovative and

unique (the paper's 'personality', which as Joel Wiener has pointed out, was partly a function of editorial persona),13 and at the same time, a phe nomenon that was characteristic of late nineteenth-century English jour nalism.

Tit-Bits began as a collection of excerpts converted into 'text' purely by a process of creative editorial synthesis, and it is infused with a deep sense

of editorial presence. The figure of the editor was, in fact, central to the

Victorian period. In an age characterised by the expansion of the publish

ing world, the editor acted as a conduit between text and audience. The

nucleus of Tit-Bits was George Newnes, 'The Editor'. Tit-Bits constitutes a dynamic process of interaction between editor-proprietor and audience, filtered through a complex construction of the nature of the editorial role,

reading, the popular audience, and the popular press. As a publisher, by his own account, Newnes had to possess 'the skill, the precision, the vigi lance, the strategy, the boldness of a commander-in-chief. As editor, he

was required

to be 'a statesman, an essayist,

a geographer,

a statistician,

and, so far as all acquisition is concerned, encyclopaedic'.14 Through Tit

Bits, Newnes evolved as an editor and a publisher, and the reader of this

paper was closely involved in this metamorphosis by virtue of Newnes'

characteristically interactive, self-conscious, self-referential, editorially

transparent, personalised, dramatic, earnest, innovative approach.

The 'Answers to Correspondents' column, conveying a sense of edito

rial presence and reader involvement, was the linchpin of the interactive

posture that Newnes adopted in Tit-Bits.15 Known at the office as

'corres.', this column was one of the most popular. 'For this page',

according to Huida Friederichs, Newnes' long-time friend, associate and

biographer, 'the editor had a very special affection, together with very definite ideas as to the manner in which it should be conducted'.

He held that, first and foremost, all answers should be given in a manner which

would make each correspondent feel that he was treated with special consider

KATE JACKSON 207

ation; that here behind this newspaper page, there was somebody to whom the

inquirer's affairs were of real human interest; who sympathised, and tried to give

his advice a practical

turn. Secondly, Mr Newnes held that the answers should be

couched in such terms, whenever this was possible,

as to make them interesting to

the general reader as well as to the individual correspondent.16

Thus, the text of Tit-Bits represented both a medium for personalised edi

tor-reader interaction and a commercial product with broad narrative and

journalistic appeal to a diverse audience, characteristics which it shared

with other products of the New Journalism. This column was not merely underpinned by the desire for commercial

success, although that was obviously a factor. It was one to which

Newnes, 'with his vivid imagination, his innate good sense, his ready wit, and above all his unfailing social tact' was ideally suited. 'For years', Friederichs went on, 'he took these letters, in bundles twelve inches high, and higher, went carefully through each, and answered them so fully, so

wisely and so well, that in course of time people belonging to every social

class sought help and advice through "corres."'. Newnes' editorial per sona was multiform. He was 'innovator and preacher', (to borrow the

title of a recent work on the Victorian editor, edited by Joel Wiener),

'patriarch and pioneer',17 democratic representative, business partner, adviser and friend; sometimes upbraiding, sometimes cajoling, sometimes

jesting, often avuncular.

Editorial interjection, often characterised by a familiar tone and con

taining references to readers as 'our friends', was the very essence of Tit

Bits: 'In consequence of the large numbers of queries we receive', inti

mated Newnes, referring to the 'Legal Tit-Bits' section, 'it is impossible to answer all we should like in this page: 'Those of our friends who find

their questions omitted will please to understand that it is not from want

of courtesy, but from want of space'.18 Considerations of friendship, it was suggested, competed with the imper atives of economy. As the editorial voice developed, the editorial persona

was dramatised in various ways. He appeared as the 'fighting Editor', the

argumentative, difficult, demonstrative, threatening editorial voice whose

volatility was curbed by his staff; the 'august personage' of the press and

public life; the slightly impractical and vague intellectual; the masterful

businessman and administrator.

In a series of episodes in 'Answers to Correspondents', for instance, it was suggested that, in order to 'earn his salary' in a quiet period of peace from 'malcontents', he should utilise a disused balloon and parachute

allegedly stored in the Tit-Bits cellar by making 'daily descents from the

top of Tit-Bits office in the excellent balloon' and returning 'to earth in

the elegant parachute'. He refused, was remonstrated with, became angry,

2o8 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

and was then soothed and finally overcome with emotion.19 Earlier, in the

'Tit-Bits Villa' Competition, the editor had appeared in 'all his editorial

dignity' to inspect the prize villa, but was nevertheless discovered to be

appealingly vulnerable as he trailed one of the curtains to be used in pho

tographing 'Tit-Bits Villa' on the ground, and was reduced to contriving to disguise the damage.20 Such episodes confirm Raymond Williams' sug

gestion that the products of 'new journalism' had links with a popular oral tradition, although it could be argued that Tit-Bits had closer connec

tions with music hall entertainment than with the more structured envi ronment of the nineteenth-century theatre. As Newnes fine-tuned his

individual act, he resembled one of the great entertainers of the variety

style of entertainment, popular amongst the working class of the later

nineteenth century. The magazines established in the period of New Journalism were

largely guided by the desire to take advantage of a lucrative commercial

opportunity. Tit-Bits was no exception, although the type of 'inclusive'

approach, to borrow Stephen Elwell's term, which characterised it was

not simply a matter of supply and demand and commercial transaction, as

will be amply demonstrated here. In an article entitled 'Editors and Social

Change: A Case Study of Once A Week' Elwell argues that, after a period of class-based journalism, the 1880s and 1890s saw the emergence of a dis

tinctly new editorial strategy that was based upon new conceptions of the

popular audience. Magazines like Tit-Bits redefined the idea of an audi ence so that they were able to speak to the mass rather than to a discrete

class of readers. Thus, Elwell argues, 'Entrepreneurs such as Newnes and

Lord Northcliffe stand out now because they discovered in the 1880s and

1890s how to define and exploit the common interest of the middle class

in inclusive rather than exclusive terms'21 Thus also, James Curran has

pointed to the integrational themes stressed in the industrialised press.22 Newnes was an astute businessman, and Tit-Bits became a kind of 'pro

motional tool' in which new competitions and features appeared each

week. As Newnes himself felt bound to confess in relation to one such

competition: 'there is no philanthropy about the matter. It is simply

prompted by the advertising instinct, and there is no more generosity about it than if we had spent hundreds of pounds on bill-posting'.23

Establishing Tit-Bits with a capital of ?500 (raised from the sale of a vege tarian restaurant which he opened for a time in Manchester), Newnes was

offered ?16,000 for the publication by a Manchester publishing firm six

weeks after the appearance of the first issue, and six months later, a Lon

don publishing firm offered ?30,000. Newnes employed various schemes to increase circulation and thus

advertising revenue. The railway insurance scheme protected every com

muter with a current copy of the magazine on his or her person whilst

KATE JACKSON 209

travelling on trains. The 'Tit-Bits Villa' Competition offered a seven

roomed free-hold house as the prize for a short story competition. And in

another competition, a series of cryptic clues divulged the whereabouts of a buried tube of five hundred gold sovereigns. In the ensuing years, ?2,500

was hidden in different locations. 'Nothing has ever occasioned such pas sionate endeavour as this search for gold', wrote Friederichs in 1911, 'per

haps because it appeals to one of the most deep-seated elemental cravings of the human heart.24 This was what Newnes referred to as 'advertisement

investment'. The idea was not completely original. A competition prize of

?1000 had been offered by a journal of the 1860s. Nevertheless Newnes

exploited this technique in a new and comprehensive fashion.

He also introduced commercial advertising on the front and back cov

ers, and later the middle pages of the paper in 1885, as a means of raising

capital for his publishing activities. The language and visual iconography

emerging from the textual transaction between advertisers and consumers

provides an insight into the tastes and preoccupations of the audience with whom the editor himself is engaged. The appeal of these advertise ments lay in the bold visual techniques of formatting and headlining, and

in the way in which they drew upon popular beliefs and ideologies. Advertisements for products such as 'Salt Regal' (prescribed as a cure for

'Infectious Diseases, Influenza, Malaria, Cholera' and even 'The Epi demic') drew upon working-class traditions of self-medication. 'Frame

Food Bread' derived its market credibility from its alleged scientific legit

imacy, and was advertised within the rhetoric of science, anthropomet ries, eugenics and efficiency, its nutritional value testified by various

medical experts. Advertisements for Pears Translucent Soap played upon

popular racist ideology, suggesting that 'cleanliness [and therefore, 'whiteness', by crude process of extrapolation] and godliness go together'.

Newnes' crowd were not only readers. They were consumers, and the advertisement pages of Tit-Bits were an attempt to gain their allegiance to

the advertisers' product, through their allegiance to the paper. In fact Newnes created out of Tit-Bits a kind of cultural phenomenon

something akin to the 'Merrie England' movement which Robert Blatch ford's series of that name in the Clarion inspired. Newnes created a popu lar movement with his advertising stunts, competitions, and general stimulation of a sense of communality among those whom he referred to as 'loyal Tit-Bitites' - that commuters' club comprised of people who

religiously carried a copy of Tit-Bits in their pockets in accordance with the conditions of the 'Tit-Bits Insurance Scheme'.25

It was these loyal readers - 'willing Tit-Bits canvassers' - whom

Newnes had attempted to rally in support of his scheme to pay ?10,000 to

the Hospitals Fund if the average circulation of the paper reached half-a million copies weekly. He promoted the scheme as 'a new kind of CO

2io Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

OPERATIVE PHILANTHROPY' designed to benefit 'a good cause',

cleverly drawing together working-class traditions of co-operation and

solidarity and middle-class traditions of charity and philanthropy:

There are thousands of people who, having no more of the world's goods than

they require for themselves, are yet willing and anxious by personal effort in their

leisure time to do what they can for promoting what they know to be good

objects....We wish to enlist the help of a large number of willing workers who will

try and make this arrangement a practical success....This may be described as a

new kind of CO-OPERATIVE PHILANTHROPY. (The Lord Mayor of Lon

don is trying to get the working people to subscribe a penny a week to the Hospi

tals. We hope he will succeed in his efforts. Here is also a chance by which

anyone, at the expenditure of a penny a week, for which he gets good value, can

have the agreeable consciousness that he is helping a

good cause....) A few willing

Tit-Bits canvassers, in each town and village in the Kingdom, will make success

certain.z6

Thus did Newnes attempt to co-opt his readers into another form of

mutual responsibility and communal identification, in an advertising stunt that was presented as a social initiative.

The 'Tit-Bits Villa' Competition saw over 22,000 letters being posted into the Tit-Bits offices, thousands of people trooping off to Dulwich for the day to see the 'Villa', and thousands of photos of 'Tit-Bits Villa' being sold as souvenirs of the competition. Newnes instituted the 'Tit-Bits

"Result" Launch', a launch employed by Tit-Bits for the day of the Uni

versity boat race to steam up the river from the winning-post, informing the crowds about the result of the race by means of streamers announcing the winner. 'The Tit-Bits "Result" Launch has now become an annual

institution,' announced Newnes, 'and in future may be looked for by those who visit the race as conveying the first intimation of the result.'27

Thus an essentially exclusive Oxbridge phenomenon was carried to the

popular 'crowds', with whom Newnes had such a rapport, through the

Tit-Bits movement.

The Editor became responsible for the guidance of his readers in multi

farious settings, and the Tit-Bits name and facsimile became an emblem of

cultural identity for both domestic and overseas readers. During the Paris

Exhibition of 1889 Newnes erected a Tit-Bits Pavilion and Inquiry Office:

having purchased a

plot of land close to the central entrance to the Exhibition...we

have erected A LARGE BUILDING, the front of which will be a facsimile in

design, colour, and every other way of the front page of Tit-Bits. This building

will be placed at the disposal of readers of Tid-Bits.z*

KATE JACKSON 211

The office was described as 'a rendezvous for all readers of Tit-Bits, and a

place for obtaining full information'. In an extension of its textual func

tion as the site in, which relationships were established and maintained, Tit-Bits became associated with the physical and spatial act of 'rendez

vous'. The interaction of editor and reading public, producer and con

sumer, on the printed page was transformed into a tangible interaction in

the context of an institution that was perhaps the most popular symbol of

nineteenth century material progress and capitalisation: the Exhibition.

The response from Newnes' readers was almost overwhelming. One

reader, living in a remote corner of Cape Colony, South Africa, led an

'enthusiastic band of Tit-Bitites' (unsolicited) on a mountaineering expe dition to paint in letters 12 ft high, on a rock overlooking the village and

visible from all directions including from the Orange River, these words:

'"Read Tit-Bits". He nominated it 'the truest philosophy in these parts of

the world'. Tit-Bits, he believed, constituted 'the real cure for bilious

attacks, homesickness and general melancholy'.29 Another devoted reader

painted the word 'Tit-Bits' in 'bold letters high up on the rocks of Great

Orme's Head at Llandudno'. Newnes gracefully acknowledged such

marks of esteem: 'We are very much obliged to those friendly readers

who, when they go upon their travels, leave behind them some record of

their favourite paper'.30 As display advertising increased in the later nine

teenth century, public criticism of the excesses of advertisers took various

forms. 3I One wonders what the reaction of locals to such signs as that

described above would have been.

The audience of Tit-Bits actually became writers, through being con

tributors, competitors and correspondents, and they gained a sense of

identity from the process of creating the text. The ?1000 prize story com

petition, employed by Newnes to choose the magazine's first serial story, and won by Grant Allen with the story 'What's Bred in the Bone', attracted over 20,000 MSS. from aspiring authors.32 Moreover, Newnes

suggested that Tit-Bits actually empowered the reader socially by provid

ing him or her with a fund of useful conversational material. 'Any person who takes Tit-Bits for three months', he claimed, 'will at the end of that

time be an entertaining companion, as he will then have at his command a

stock of smart sayings and a fund of anecdote which make his society

agreeable.' 33 Newnes envisaged Tit-Bits as a social asset, a form of dia

logue integral to social life. He himself was an interesting, entertaining, and genial after-dinner speaker, according to Friederichs, and he saw in

Tit-Bits a kind of discursive version of the clubs he frequented: the

National Liberal and Devonshire Clubs. In a sense Tit-Bits represents Newnes' instinctive sense of hospitality and sociability. He was a natural

host, and his journalism in some sense reflected his desire to entertain his

'friends': in this case the loyal readers of Tit-Bits.

212 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

Yet Newnes took the relationship between himself and his readers very

seriously. He conceived of it as a relationship bound by legal and moral

obligations, constantly invoking the idea of the contract which he strove

to maintain with Tit-Bits readers. In the 'Tit-Bits Villa' Competition, for

example, he went into endless detail regarding the conditions of the com

petition, answered the questions of prospective competitors in the weeks

leading up to the judging, and reported on the entire process of awarding and bestowing the prize, as 'an absolute guarantee to the public that it has

been given without favour'. 'We shall take pride in seeing that the house is one which all will admit is a fair and reasonable fulfilment of our con

tract', he announced:

Let everyone remember that we have pledged our

reputation in this matter ... and

all may be sure that we shall make this prize one which shall redound to the credit

of Tit-Bits, and not one of which we shall be ashamed.34

Aware of the decision, derived from various Common Law cases relat

ing to promotional schemes of the period and from Trade Marks Acts of

1875 and 1883, that a general offer in an advertisement could constitute

part of an enforcable contract, Newnes made repeated reference to his

legal obligations as publisher-promoter within the text of Tid-Bits.35 He

elaborated upon the terms of the contract as time went on. 'The greatest care is taken to give correct answers to inquiries', he explained in one

issue, 'but at the same time our correspondents

must understand that we

disclaim any responsibility in giving our opinions'. In the same issue it was stated that correspondents were required to 'give their names and

addresses, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.'36 Later, when Newnes was negotiating the possibility of introduc

ing advertising, he again employed the language of the law, explaining that he 'scarcely liked to intrude more pages of advertisements upon [his] readers without giving them full compensation'. To this end, the intro

duction of commercial advertising on the front and back covers of Tit

Bits did not serve to reduce the number of printed pages in the paper.

Every change in format or content in Tit-Bits was discussed at length. The

process by which the publication, and indeed its editor, evolved, was thus

characterised by its transperancy.37 Thus Newnes was engaged in estab

lishing a relationship of trust and loyalty - a kind of moral bond as well as

a legal one - with his readers. Manchester readers took this bond very

seriously. When Harmsworth introduced Answers, an imitation of Tit

Bits, they displayed their loyalty to Newnes by boycotting the new

comer.38

Stephen Kern has suggested that the journalistic medium itself is both

democratising and communal by virtue of the way in which it diminishes

KATE JACKSON "3

the distance between individuals - both social and geographical. It is

equally accessible to all classes and decreases the isolation of individuals

both in the city and throughout the whole country.39 This is certainly true

of Tit-Bits, which had, as has been noted, a wide circulation. Social segre

gation and fragmentation had been the legacy of industrialisation and

urbanisation. With urban segregation and urban spread, the wealthy

employing class tended to move outside the boundaries of the larger towns

and cities, and thus removed themselves from the responsibilities and net

works of the communities they left behind. Only some, like Newnes, con

tinued to engage in what Harold Perkin refers to as 'competitive

philanthropy',40 giving hospitals, libraries, public parks, town halls, and

churches to the towns. The appeal of Tit-Bits, I would contend, lay largely in its re-creation of this kind of community of mutual responsibility.

Newnes' father had belonged to a generation of Free Church pastors who brought to their work a strong sense of personal responsibility for

and intimacy with the individual members of their congregations. Jona thon Rose has argued that the movement for 'fellowship' in the late-nine

teenth century was in fact a secular replacement for religion. It would seem entirely possible that Newnes sought to replicate the bond of

human fellowship which the Church had provided in the secular medium

of the popular.41 Under the masterful yet lively administration of its

'commander in chief, George Newnes, Tit-Bits offered its readers

engagement, interaction and connection.

In the 1880s and 1890s, many educated men and women acquired a

practical personal commitment to the ideals of human fellowship and social unity. In pursuit of the ideal of a common bond of citizenship, a

number of middle-class students resided in newly-formed 'settlement

houses' such as Toynbee Hall, which opened in 1885 and was followed by many more,42 providing a range of social services: health care, kindergar tens, child-care classes, legal aid, lectures, libraries, concerts, recreational facilities. J.A. Spender, who was to edit Newnes' liberal political weekly, the Westminster Gazette, was a Toynbee resident. The gospel of fellow

ship even permeated public policy, and the move towards collectivism in

public opinion and the law was a manifestation of the same impulse towards the creation of a socially unified society based on mutual respon

sibility.43 It is my contention that the House of Newnes, here represented

by Tit-Bits, was symbolic of just these currents in contemporary thought and was, in fact, itself the kind of journalistic, discursive equivalent of a

settlement house, providing social services, advice, participation and a sense of community and citizenship for its audience.

In the 190th issue of Tit-Bits, Newnes introduced an 'Agony Column',

explaining the innovation as a response to readers who had applied to

'take advantage of the immense circulation of Tit-Bits to put in notices

214 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

with regard to missing friends, and on other matters.'44 The 'agony col

umn', according to the OED, was a journalistic innovation which first

appeared only in about 1880, in the Times. It could thus be seen as a fea ture of the sort of personal journalism that has been nominated as charac

teristic of the New Journalism. The 'agonies' of Tit-Bits readers ranged from attempts to re-establish contact with lost friends, relatives or lovers, to warnings to enemies, to reassurances to exiles fearing persecution if

they returned to the family nest: 'HARRY', read one such message, 'there

is no longer any reason why you should stay away. The man is quite well, and no attempt will be made to prosecute you. He got better in a week'.45

Another was addressed slightly more specifically to 'NAOMY C: I have

looked everywhere for you since our last interview in S. Lane; can I see

you again? If so, write to this paper (Agony Column), and say when and

where- TED'.46

Thus Newnes created a community in which people could voice their

concerns, contact others, vent their emotions and exchange gossip. The

narrative interest of this column was implicit. There was a certain element

of voyeurism. Tit-Bits became a stage wherein personal dramas were

enacted as well as a central organ of communication and identity. In an

age in which traditional support networks had been destroyed, Newnes'

paper symbolised a common bond.47 The column, however, ran over five

issues only (190-194) from June-July, 1885. Ultimately it was discontin

ued because the editor was reluctant to 'allow it to become simply a

means of making appointments' as it was tending to do. In Newnes' with

drawal of support for the column was not only a sense of its low circula

tion value but of the disappointed philanthropist and social worker, whose visions of re-introducing long-lost friends and identifying great

personal causes had been disappointed. If Tit-Bits represented a kind of discursive community of interest

within the popular press, then this was a combination of self-help institu

tion and paternalist State. It offered mutual support and a wide range of

services to society in the manner of the settlement house. Newnes

employed a variety of professionals to supply advice to and exert an edu

cational influence upon his readers. A lawyer answered readers' legal que

ries, a doctor answered 'Medical Questions', and the editor himself

supplied answers to readers' correspondence and inquiries. Newnes introduced the column entitled 'Tit-Bits of Legal Information'

in 1881, in response to requests from contributors for legal information to

which he saw it as part of his duty to respond:

We have received so many applications from our subscribers for tit-bits of legal

information on matters important to our correspondents, that we have secured

the services of a legal gentleman to give the required answers'.48

KATE JACKSON 215

The column was a legal, journalistic version of the talkback radio pro

gram. Over the early years of the paper's publication, a range of questions

relating to the urban, industrial life and to the legal preoccupations of this

society emerged within it. Certain themes recurred: the nature of the con

tract or legal agreement, the question of marriage and property relations,

tenancy matters. Questions concerning the ability of a married woman to

make a will were common. The Married Women's Property Act of 1883 had newly granted her that right and also enabled women to initiate civil

law suits, hence the significant contingent of female correspondents to

this column. Divorce laws had also altered the legal position of women.

'Your husband having deserted you without cause for upwards of two

years', read the Editor's response to one female correspondent, 'you are

entitled to a judicial separation': 'To enable you to marry another person,

you would have to be divorced from your present husband, and you could only obtain such decree on proving that your husband had been

guilty of both adultery and desertion.49

This advice column spawned other textual forms of social service and

discursive interaction. A series containing practical advice to readers on

'How to Marry' provided an excellent description of the 'Legal Effect of

Marriage' in this regard:

Until a few months ago the husband and wife were as one person in the law; the

very being or

legal existence of the woman being by the common law suspended

during marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of her hus

band, under whose wing, protection and cover she was supposed

to perform

everything. ... All that is now

changed, and since January ist last, a married

woman can enter into contracts, sue and be sued, acquire, hold and dispose of

property of any kind, in the same way as if she were unmarried; and her general

legal position in relation to property is made much the same as that of a man.5?

Thus the married woman was made acquainted with her legal rights

through the discursive equivalent of a settlement house, adapted for an

upper-working and lower middle-class audience preoccupied with such

legal issues.

Questions relating to the right of a domestic servant to unpaid wages when dismissed, to debt recovery and the relationship between producer and consumer, to the right of a father to bind his son as an apprentice

without the son's consent, to the obligations of a patent-holder, to the

laws governing marriage and divorce, to the conditions attached to life

insurance policies, to the issues of income tax and of financial liability, crowded these columns. 'The publication of an advertisement offering a

definite reward for information respecting a loss or a crime', wrote the

legal editor, clarifying the legal situation of his client-reader in an obser

2i6 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

vation that was particularly relevant to the late nineteenth-century peri odical, 'is a general offer to any person who is able to give the information

asked; and the acceptance of that offer, by giving such information, cre

ates a valid contract. You therefore could, if you felt so disposed, compel payment in the case you mention'.51 Tit-Bits offered legal advice for its

citizen-readers, just as it offered medical advice, advice on emigration (in a series entitled 'Intelligent Emigration'), creative participation and a

sense that editors and audience were bound in a community of mutual

responsibility. This column led to the publication of a work called, signif

icantly, The People's Lawyer, a title which had associations with the idea

of democratic access to the law.

A two-part series on 'Medical Questions' supplied 'an explanation of

the causes and cures of the various ailments of which our querists have

complained' as well as 'knowledge on the general principles of health'.

The medical conditions treated included indigestion, headaches, 'noises in

the ear', bunions and varicose veins, and the doctor's advice tended to

take the form of a discourse on urban degeneration, social responsibility, and temperance, with phrases such as 'irregular living', 'deficient care' and

'bad cooking' figuring heavily. Indigestion, it was suggested, was a result

of urban conditions:

The hurried meals partaken of by a large number of clerks and warehousemen

cannot but produce indigestion -

all the laws of healthy digestion are violated. A

run to a close restaurant, or a scramble to catch the bus or train, the food bolted,

and then a smoke, and another scramble to get back to the office, is the daily rou

tine of a large number of our

townspeople.52

The column was almost reformist in tone. A later feature-a competition to produce the best list of 'Ten Long-Felt Wants'-similarly precipitated an exposition on social reform and social responsibility.53 The discourse

of these columns was not partisan or directly political. But it created an

atmosphere conducive to the voicing of critical views, to participation and

representation.

Newnes' innovative publishing strategies were the key to the success of

Tit-Bits. One scheme which guaranteed the circulation of Tit-Bits was the

novel 'Tit-Bits Insurance Scheme', introduced in May 1885. Newnes

announced 'THE NEW SYSTEM OF LIFE ASSURANCE' in bold cap itals, a characteristic journalistic ploy for drawing attention to the innova

tion:

ONE HUNDRED POUNDS WILL BE PAID BY THE PROPRIETOR OF "TIT-BITS" TO THE NEXT-OF-KIN OF ANY PERSON WHO IS KILLED

IN A RAILWAY ACCIDENT, PROVIDED A COPY OF THE CURRENT

KATE JACKSON 217

ISSUE OF "TIT-BITS" IS FOUND UPON THE DECEASED AT THE TIME

OF THE CATASTROPHE.54

Characteristically, the scheme had been suggested to Newnes by a reader

whose husband, a devoted reader of Tit-Bits who was almost due to be

rewarded for his constancy with a sum of money in accordance with an

incentive scheme for subscribers introduced by Newnes to raise circula

tion, had been killed in a railway accident. She applied to Newnes for some

compensation, and was sent ?100.

Claims were always billed on the front cover of the paper, their visibil

ity guaranteeing their impact [see figure 2]. The first insurance claim was

paid in August 1885. A 40 year old coachbuilder with 4 children was

killed when he was run over by a train after falling between the train and

the platform at Hatfield Station. The Coroner's verdict was 'Accidental

Death', and four witnesses testified to the fact that 'a copy of Tit-Bits had

been found upon the unfortunate man at the time of the accident'. Thus

'the Proprietor of Tit-Bits' paid ?100 insurance money to the victim's

widow, A. Long, and the recipient's receipt of payment was published in

Tit-Bits as proof of the transaction.55 A series of claims followed at the rate of about every two months, and by September 1891, a total of 36 claims had been paid. All claims generally followed the same format, and

were decided by 'THE PROPRIETOR OF "TIT-BITS'".

Appended to the eighteenth insurance claim was a moral:

We trust that the publicity which the Tit-Bits Insurance Scheme has been the means of giving to this lamentable occurrence may to some extent put a stop to

the habit of leaping out of a train while in motion, which is so prevalent in young

men. To jeopardise life in this reckless fashion is an act of which no sensible per

son should be capable.56

In this manner, the editor-proprietor of Tit-Bits established himself

investigator and jury in these cases, taking the evidence, hearing the testi

monies of the witnesses, and handing down a judgement. He set himself

up as a guardian of social conscience and as a figure of paternalistic benev

olence, fulfilling his responsibilities to his community of readers by dis

pensing insurance claims. There is something symbolic (if a little morbid) in the fact that all of these victims were found with a copy of Tit-Bits on

their person. Newnes' publication appealed to a commuting market, and to a public preoccupied with the notion of life insurance and concerned

with the frequency of railway accidents.57 But apart from anything else, the idea of railway insurance sold Tit-Bits, and the stories that emerged

were gripping stories.

218 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

TI T^B I # S: ?

I?1 l U smif?mt?

HE WORLD;

No. 198.?Vol. VIII. [ ??

CONDUCTED BT 0X0. NXWSXS.__

PRICE ONE PENNY. [t"?T5S??*tSo?i August 1, 1885.

THE FIRST CLAIMANT FOR THE ?106 INSURANCE MONEY.

VHK following ?a an account o? an accident which occurred on the l>.th o? July, at Hatfield Station.

"A large number of the em ploye* in the engineers' depart

i.ient of the Ureet Partner? Railway had an excursion to Cleethorpes, on. eke)

i Lincolnshire coast On returning YeW train stopped at different station* to aet

n n passengers, and when ?topping at Hatfield that purpose several men got out of the

John Long, the chairman of the com ee, was endeavouring to get the i 1 ' * -neld tor - '

t moved on , i no: belong to Hatneld to re-enter the train, . he attempted to jump on the

tfe|> but mused it and fell on the platform, and tlien rolled uuderneath the train. The train was immediately stopped, but two or three of the

nrriage* had paved over him, and he was ao iujured that he died directly after being picked !?. Deeeaaed was forty years of age, and lived

? 21, Hayelook Street, Copenhagen Street, Uodon. He was ?Utod to be perfectly aober at -ie time of the accident. An inqueat was held oo the body before Mr. ?. J. S worder, corooec, at the Red Lion HoteL Hatfield, on Tuesday, and the ]ury returned a verdict of ' Accidentai death.' * A few days afterwarde we received an intitna

tiou tuat a copy of Tit-Biu had been found upon tie unfortunate man at the time of the acoideut

We at once dispatched a representative to Hatfield to make fall inquiries. These resulted '? the following information :? P. a Cannon, No. 26, Herts Constabulary,

Httfield, said : " I carao up jnst after the accident ?ad had the body removed to the Red Lion Hotel, here upon search 1 found a copy of Tit-Bit?, ? ich must hare been there at the time of the incident." The following witnesses also saw the search:

P.C. Tilbrook, No. 104, Hert's Constabulary,

HatfiakL WnxiAii Tvt?b,

,-?igaal-fitter, New Town. Hatfield.

Waui? Orekk, Ticket Collector,

Railway Cottages, Hatfield.

! Although the deceased was a railway servant, i still, in view of all the facts of the case we , decided at onoe to pay the /100, and accord ? ?ngly T-rrote for the widow, Mrs. Long, to ; attend at these offices. We give below a cojiy of j nor receipt for the money.

! July Vtk, IS*:. Ricuvkd from the Proprietor of Tit-BiU One

Huxdred Pocxue, being Insurance money paid on account of thesdeath of my husband, John Long, who was killed in a railway accident at Hatfield Station, on Saturday, 18th in*t, a copy ai Tt-B+Uk?t foasMi ?pon hu body. '

sJQ|d) A. LONG, , 21, Havelock Street,

| Copenhagen Street, London, X.

It must be distinctly understood that, although we have paid tkia money to the heir of a railway servant in the exercise of oar discretion, still we adhere to toe original conditions of the offer coutained in the following paragraph :? " Ws regret to say that we cannot see our way to include railway servants, the statistic* of the past few years snowing the annual loss of life amongst them to be ao great that we dare not extend the oder to them." j The deceased was employed as ooachbuilder in i the Loco. Department, King's Cross. He was,

A Durham man ask* two thousand pound * durasses (or the loss of three lingers. He must be a pickpocket. tee?

Ir some ambitious playwriter wants to write something that will be jopular with the men tun hot weather, lie will get up a drama in sixteen short acta, so as to givo more opportunities to go out.

Ik Ceylon the cellar is the place to go in the time of a cyclone, and when a man has a barrel of cyder it's surprising how many times a day he thinks there s a cyclone coming.

Why is it that the average young lady can remember accurately 300 pages of a novel, but can never remember a single page of history ? Psychologists will please come to the front on this

Jbi : " I fancy, Edouard, yon are mating fun of me ; instead of a love-letter which you promised to write, you sent me the other day a blank sheet of note-paper.'' He : " That was intended as a love-letter, my darling ; for my love to you passai description."

" Tail man Jones is one o? the luckiest fellows T know of. Ybu heard of his arm being blown off last week in that explosion V " Yes, but there is nothing very lucky about that" " It was his right arm, yon know." " Well, what if it was his right know." " Well, what i..

Why. he is left-handed.'

If there is a suicidal tendency in a man it U apt to develope soon after marriage, when he first discovers the pearly little teeth of his sle'.piii-i darling drowning themselves in a tumbler on her dreawug-tablt?

Ax absent-minded professor was sitting at hi? desk writing one cveuing, when one of his children entered. " What do yon wont 1 1 can ' be disturbed now." " I only want to say goo.1 night

' ' Never mind now. to morrow moruiug will do as welt"

If men and women would only display half a much frantic energy and ability in gettiug aliea<l in life as they do in dodging across the stn-et m front of an approaching hansom cab or ''ms, \vj should all be Rothschilds before 1390.

It is stated that a householder at Brighton, being inconvenienced by the presence ot t w > gentlemen in possession, and finding that honey. 1 words were of no avail in getting rid of hn visitors, Sung down his beehive on the floor, an.I the plan was most successful, for the attention of the bees was so marked, that both bailiffs beat a hasty retreat, doubtless rtung to the quick by thi< treatment \Yo suppose if they should return h would only have to ray, "To bee, or not to be?, that is the question !

"

It is said to bo the custom at Moots Carlo to fill the pockets of suicides with bank-not??, so that it may be assumed they did not sjll them "'-account of looses. The stotw' goes that a presumably dead Lehman, knowing this custom, succeeded in setting his pockets filled a short time ago. After losing a small sum at the gaming

immediately afterwards the guards heard a pistol shot and then a cry of pain, and rushing to the spot found the Irishman apparently dead. It wsj dark, with no one around, so they filled his pockets with money, and left him to be discovered in the morning. They hid scarcely gone out of sight, however, before the Irishman was on his feet again and skipping away in .the most lively sty la

Interesting stories were also central to the prize competitions. In

November 1883, a revolutionary competition

was announced. A seven

roomed free-hold dwelling-house was offered as a prize to the person

sending in the story adjudged the best by the Tit-Bits adjudicators. The

main stipulation made by Newnes was that the winner should call the house 'Tit-Bits Villa'.58 The editor stressed that the competition was open to 'every member of every family in the Kingdom, from the highest to the

lowest', a fact which was guaranteed by the extraordinary condition that

KATE JACKSON 219

entries could be selected from a published work rather than being origi nal. Thus the competition required no great literary skill. His approach to

the conduct of the competition was typically interactive. Introducing a

feature called 'MORE QUESTIONS ANSWERED', he answered the

queries of competitors, and throughout the competition, was quick to

answer objections. He explained, berated, commented, appealed to the

better natures of his readers, and publicised editorial dilemmas, drawing on the idea of the competition as a 'transaction' entered into in 'good faith' and precluding 'any breach of faith with the public'

The purpose of the competition, of course, was to raise circulation, but

those who joined the 'followers of Tit-Bits' could expect an intimate and

responsive relationship with their leader, the Editor. At the conclusion of

the competition, for instance, Newnes played police, prosecution, and

judiciary in passing sentence on the 'unprincipled miscreant' who had

falsely informed a competitor that he had won the prize:

We are of the opinion that an unnatural ruffian who would be guilty of such a

dastardly act as this deserves punishment of the severest kind, and we offer

?5 REWARD to anyone who will disclose to us the name of this viper.

If we unearth him we shall spare no pains or expense to prove that this act was

forgery, and comes under penal laws.59

The role of the editor-leader of this discursive community extended, it

seems, even to the policing of community interests.

'For many years', Friederichs explained, 'not a line was published which he had not read and approved. No detail was too slight to receive

his personal attention, and at short intervals he made thorough inquiries as to his readers' opinion on this or that page or column, substituting new

features for those which had obviously ceased to interest, and always

inventing and adopting fresh ideas.'60 A constant stream of invention and

innovation followed. Newnes was typically candid about this. 'We do not

intend to allow it to hang fire', he explained. 'Let it run its reasonable

course, and then make room for some other novelty'.61

Ultimately, Newnes published a 'REPORT UPON THE COMPETI

TION'. 22,000 letters were received, some containing up to 20 entries.

'Tit-Bits Villa' became a place of pilgrimage for day-trippers and tourists, and was constructed by Newnes as the ideal home. It was open for

inspection, and many hundreds took the trip by rail to visit. The villa was

awarded in a public ceremony that must have resembled a political rally, and 100,000 photos of the house were developed and sold. Even then,

supply did not meet demand. The villa, in reality unoccupied at this point, was an image constructed for publicity purposes.

220 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

The competitions, 'Inquiry Column', 'Legal Tit-Bits' section and

'Answers to Correspondence' column in Tit-Bits represent the possibility of reader participation-the creative freedom of the open text as opposed to the prescriptive reality of the closed text. Winners of all competitions

were publicised in the paper, their names and addresses accorded special attention. And in the context of explaining the conditions of the Tit-Bits

Villa competition, Newnes articulated the democratic ideal in making the

competition 'open to every one of our readers, irrespective of age, sex,

nationality or colour'. Thus creative freedom was transformed by the edi tor into political and social liberty and equality, the market relationship

becoming the basis of a system of democratic representation. Tit-Bits

constituted a kind of medium of participation for its readers, a pluralistic discursive sphere.

Newnes himself appeared as a 'benignant administrator',62 conducting the affairs of his publishing house in an interactive fashion as if he were

administering a pluralist state. The written word became a vehicle and a

symptom of democracy. Newnes rarely spoke in Parliament and became

disillusioned after entering it with high ideals and a young man's social

and political visions. His journals were his public voice. He forged such

strong links with his readers - 'the noble band of constant subscribers' -

that they came to be something akin to constituents. As a result, perhaps, of the relationship that he developed with the reading public through Tit

Bits, Newnes' received not less than 33 requests from constituencies

wishing him to represent them during the years of his retirement from

politics (1895-1900). He had, in effect, already done so. Newnes' journal ism in Tit-Bits was not political like that of his friend W.T. Stead, but his success was dependent, in a way that is manifest in the text of this publi cation, upon the relationship that he established between the dynamics of

journalism and the dynamics of late-Victorian life.

Tit-Bits, its editor claimed, fed not on current political crises, but on

everyday life:

Tit-Bits thrives best when the world moves on smoothly, and when people have

to seek amongst its pages for that interest which is denied to them in the perusal of

commonplace current events*.63

In fact the circulation of the paper went down by over 40,000 copies 'dur

ing the excitement connected with the Whitechapel murders', and 'as soon as the horrors ceased immediately went up again.' Newnes' journal ism was far removed from the kind of political potency that characterised

the journalism of Harmsworth, and that of W.T. Stead. It thrived in an

atmosphere of sociability, and in catching and creating the rhythms of

daily life.

Tit-Bits featured little that was partisan or even explicitly political in

KATE JACKSON 221

content, although the general international and political climate did per meate the text.64 Nevertheless, the spectre of increasing working and

lower-middle class political potency, in conjunction with increasing liter

acy and purchasing power, clearly impressed the editor. In 1890 he con

ducted a public opinion poll, in an attempt to gauge 'the feeling of the

country' as regards the likely outcome of an election, amidst speculation about public confidence in the government. Claiming that Tit-Bits is 'the

paper in this country which has the widest and most general circulation' and hence that an opinion poll conducted by Newnes would constitute 'the very nearest approach that can be obtained to a General Election',

Newnes instituted just that. He issued voting papers, counted the votes

(the public were admitted for the counting and the Secretaries of the Con servative and Liberal Clubs invited to attend to ensure fair play), and

publicised the results. The result was one by which Newnes, as a Liberal

M.P., would have been encouraged. Some 35,972 voting papers were

received. Of these, 17,086 voted 'Yes' to the question of whether they had confidence in the present Conservative Government, and 18,886 voted 'No'. In August, 1892, Gladstone's Liberals were to be returned to office.

Newnes' sensitivity to the currents of political and cultural change and the journalistic possibilities created by the development of the working class political electorate, the mass market and the popular literate audi

ence, was to prompt him to establish another penny weekly entitled The

Million, in 1892. The key to the success of Tit-Bits was brevity and good humour. It was

essentially light entertainment; part of the 'gospel of fun' which Jonathon Rose sees as a characteristic element of the 'Edwardian Temperament'.65

Oh, you may call it cheap journalism; you may say it combined lottery with liter

ature, but I will tell you this, that it guided an enormous class of superficial read

ers, who craved for light reading, and would have read so-called sporting papers if

they had not read Tit-Bits, into a wholesome vein which may have led them to

higher forms of literature.66

Thus did Newnes answer his critics, and in so doing, he identified an issue of immense significance to contemporaries, and one which pervades the

historiography of periodical literature to this day: that of the tension between commercial value and literary value in journalistic production. A

deep sense of editorial conscience underpinned Tit-Bits. It represented a

performance, a construction, a carefully-balanced act of negotiation between editor-publisher and audience that was more than a timely but transient commercial triumph. It represented an evolving discourse of

journalism.

University of Sydney

222 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

ENDNOTES

i. Huida Friederichs, The Life of George Newnes, Bart. (London: Hodder and

Stoughton, 1911 ), pp. 116-17. This remains the only biography of Sir George Newnes.

2. See Victorian Periodicals Review, 11 (Fall 1989). 3. Tit-Bits, 1.1 (October 1881), 1.

4. In fact, the number of passengers carried by the railways increased dramati

cally from around 500 million on 1878 to around 1000 million in 1898, and

had reached 1,250 million in 1908 (E. J. Hobsbam, Industry and Empire [Lon don: Penguin, 1968], Fig. 17).

5. Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1/80-1880 (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 92-99.

6. National newspaper and periodical editors and proprietors were leaders of

one of the few professions in which a poor boy could rise from the bottom, like J. L. Garvin of the Observer, son of an Irish labourer, or Alfred Harm

sworth, an office boy who rose to editor's and proprietor's chairs. This was

rare before World War I, however, most coming from the upper and middle

classes, public or private-school and university (often Oxbridge) educated, and heir to substantial estates (Perkins, p. 90).

7. Geraldine Beare, "Indexing the Strand Magazine," Journal of Newspaper and

Periodical History, 11

(Spring 1986), 20.

8. This is according to Richard Altick, The English Common Reader. A Social

History of the Mass Reading Public (Chicago: UCPress, 1963), p. 396. But

Newnes himself claimed a rise in the average circulation over the year to only

430,318 (Tit-Bits, 17.429).

9. Altick, p. 396.

10. These figures are for 1885, as

quoted in Tit-Bits, 7.181 (March 1885), 396.

11. Tit-Bits, 1.19 (March 1882), 1.

12. Tit-Bits, 17.418 (October 1884), I7

13. Joel Wiener, "Sources for the Study of Newspapers," in Laurel Brake, Aled

Jones, and Lionel Madden eds., Investigating Victorian Journalism (New

York: St. Martin's, 1990), p. 155.

14. Tit-Bits, 1.24 (March 1882), 5.

15. The 'Notices to Correspondents' Column had been a very popular department

in the family periodicals of the 1840s and 1850s such as Lloyd's, London Jour nal, and Reynold's Miscellany. According to Anne Humpherys, Reynold's

acted as 'a stern adviser, a knowledgeable informant, an avuncular domestic

manager' (Anne Humpherys, "G. W. M. Reynolds: Popular Literature and

Popular Politics," in Joel H. Wiener ed., Innovators and Preachers: The Role of

the Editor in Victorian England [New York: Greenwood Press, 1985], p. 18.

16. Friederichs, pp. 106-07. Friederichs' biography was

partly based upon the

autobiographical jotting made by Newnes before he died.

KATE JACKSON 223

17. See Wiener; Helen Ogden Martin, The Editor and His People; Editorials by William Allen White (New York: Macmillan, 1924).

18. Tit-Bits, 13.313 (October 1887), 14.

19. Tit-Bits, 15.379 (January 1889), 237; 15.381 (February 1888)), 269.

20. Tit-Bits, 5.117 (January 1884), 203.

21. Wiener, p. 40. My italics.

22. James Curran, "The Press as an Agency of Social Control" in George Boyce,

James Curran, and Pauline Wingate, Newspaper History from the Seventeenth

Century to the Present Day (London: Constable, 1978), 70. See also James Mill's essay on the periodical press in George Levine ed., The Emergence of

the Victorian Consciousness (New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 174-91. What

begins as a

critique of periodical literature is transmuted into an analysis of the

power structure of British society. Mill argues that the 'opposition' section of

the ruling 'aristocracy' -

those desiring a greater share of power-take the mid

dle ground in public life in order to retain the support of the aristocracy and

woo the popular masses.

23. Tit-Bits, 5.115 (December 1883), 168.

24. Friederichs, p. 97.

25. The Clarion was established ten years after Tit-Bits, in 1891, and was a very

popular paper (see Merrie England [London: Nunquam, 1893; repr. Journey man Press, 1976]. Blatchford, however, was involved in the theatre in his

youth, began his journalistic career writing for a

racing paper, had a reputa

tion for drunkenness, and was a leading advocate of socialism, whereas

Newnes had a good education, started work as an

apprentice in the fancy

goods trade, began his career in journalism with the publication of Tit-Bits,

and was a Liberal M.P.

26. Tit-Bits, i6.}9j (May 1889), ^7.

17. Tit-Bits, 9.234 (April 1886), 413. 28. Tit-Bits, 16.394 (May 1889), 49.

29. Tit-Bits, 9.234 (April 1886), 408.

30. Tit-Bits, 14.342 (May 1888), 61.

31. In two notable instances in the period, public outrage against the activities of

advertisers was sparked by the erection of highly visible signs

or hoardings

within the jurisdiction of urban authorities. The Bovril Company's plans, in

1897, to adorn the exterior of a building in Princes Street, Edinburgh, with

illuminated signs was abandoned because of public outcry. And four years

later, a similar public reaction greeted the erection of an advertisement sign for

Quaker Oats in a prominent position

on Dover cliffs. The Dover Corporation

responded by promoting a local Act of Parliament to enable it to deal with

such abuses. In 1893, the National Society for Controlling the Abuses of Pub

lic Advertising was formed. It numbered amongst its members Sydney Courthold, three members of the Fry family, Holman Hunt, A. V. Dicey,

William Morris, Walter Besant, and Rudyard Kipling, but was essentially an

224 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

upper-middle class movement, receiving publicity out of proportion

to its

support (see T. R. Nevett, Advertising in Britain [London: Heinemann, 1982],

p. 117).

32. Friederichs, pp. 90-1.

33. Tit-Bits, 1.1 (Octoben88i), 1.

34. Tit-Bits, 5.112 (December 1883), 120.

35. As the use of competitions increased towards the end of the century, a num

ber of cases were brought before the courts as

constituting lotteries. Accord

ing to numerous Acts passed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the

organising and advertising of any lottery was unlawful. The key question, for

judges, was whether the distribution of prizes in various promotional schemes

was dependent upon chance, and thus constituted a

lottery. Competitions

aimed at boosting newspaper circulations featured in the courts. Trade Marks

Acts of 1875, 1883, 1888 and 1905 restricted the kinds of claims that could be

made, particularly regarding rival products, and enforced protection of the

trader's name. The decision that a general offer in an advertisement could con

stitute part of an enforcable contract was the result (Nevett, pp. 133-37). In

the much-publicised case of Carlill v. the Carbolic Smoke Ball Co?, for

instance, the plaintiff, Mrs. Carlill, contracted influenza after taking the smoke

ball. In response to the advertisement-guarantee of the company, she claimed

a 100 'reward'. The judge interpreted the advertisement as a legally binding

contract and she was awarded the amount.

36. Tit-Bits, 13.313 (October 1887), 14.

37. Tit-Bits, 17.418 (October 1889).

38. Friederichs, pp. 80-1.

39. Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space (Cambridge: Harvard UP,

1983). I would express some reservations about the accessibility of journalism

to all classes. Some of the working class would have been unable to afford

magazines of the Tit-Bits variety.

40. Harold Perkin, The Age of the Railway (Newton Abbot: David and Charles,

1971), p. 262.

41. This point recalls Carlyle's comment that the Victorian editor constituted the

Church of England. 42. By 1913, 27 settlement houses had been planted in the poorer areas of London

(Kern, p. 56). Polytechnics, launched at about the same time, also reflected a

broad middle-class movement to decrease social distance and replace the

paternalism of Victorian charity with a notion of people's participation in a

common relationship of 'social citizenship' and entitlement to common social

services.

43. Such a shift was manifest in legislation to ensure

equal access to educatiion

and to provide a system of 'household suffrage', and in legislation designed to

foster national welfare through the promotion of the social side of human

nature. See A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relationship Between Law and Public

KATE JACKSON 225

Opinion During the Nineteenth Century in England (London: Macmillan,

1905), pp. 281-300.

44. Tit-Bits, 8.190 (June 1885), 113.

45. Tit-Bits, 8.191 (June 1885), 131.

46. Tit-Bits, 8.192 (June 1885), 147.

47. Tit-Bits, 8.194 (July 1885), 179.

48. Tit-Bits, 1.4 (November 1881), 14.

49. Tit-Bits, 1.6 (November 1881), 14.

50. Tit-Bits, 4.85 (June 1883), 108.

51. Tit-Bits, 1.20 (February 1881), 14.

52. Tit-Bits, 5.125 (March 1884), 333.

53. Tit-Bits, 6.130 (April 1884), 221, 250.

54. Tit-Bits, 8.189 (May 1885), <)j. Other publishers soon followed Newnes' lead.

Public Opinion, for example, ran a similar scheme in the 1890s and 1900s. It

was a scheme that was copied in a fiercely competitive fashion by the daily

newspapers of the 1930s.

55. Tit-Bits, 8.198 (August 1885), 241.

56. Tit-Bits, 15.387 (March 1889), 353.

57. Such concern was considerable. According to a report compiled by the Board

of Trade, the number of people killed on the railways in 1880 was 1,136, and

the number injured 3,958. Of these, 143 persons killed and 1,613 injured were

passengers. The period from 1870 to 1900 was characterised by considerable

public concern over

railway accidents caused, it was contended, by the over

working of railway employees. In 1871, Michael Bass, M.P. for Derby and an

important shareholder in and customer of the Midland Railway, raised the

matter of railway accidents and conditions in Parliament, sparking consider

able debate in Parliament and the press. A public and parliamentary campaign to limit the hours worked by railwaymen and increase safety on the railways

continued through the 1870s and 1880s. Returns providing evidence of sys

tematised overworking (accumulated by Lord de la War in 1887 and 1888) led to a debate in the House of Commons which resulted in the appointment of a

Select Committee to inquire whether the hours should be restricted by legisla

tion. In 1893 the Railway Regulation Act was passed. It provided for the

Board of Trade to inquire into cases of overwork, have access to duty sched

ules from offending companies, and levy fines on such companies for failure

to adhere to the Boarad's instructions (see Perkin, Age of the Railway, pp.

292-96).

58. The term 'villa' is significant. Deriving from ancient Greek and Roman terms,

in English it was originally

a country mansion, seat, or estate - a sizeable

house on its own grounds which symbolised social status. By the nineteenth

century, the term began

to be applied to middle-class housing, usually

detached or semi-detached (the 'suburban villa').

59. Tit-Bits, 5.117 (January 1884), 205.

226 Victorian Periodicals Review 30:3 Fall 1997

60. Friederichs, p. 109.

61. Tit-Bits, 5.112 (December 1883), 120.

62. This is a phrase used frequently in the Wide World Magazine to describe Brit

ish administrators in the Empire.

63. Tit-Bits, 15.385 (March 1889), 333.

64. In 1885, for instance, the year of Gordon's death, an article on 'The War

Strength of Europe' in which statistics on population, standing army, auxil

iary forces, navy, ships, and military expenditure were cited, was

published as

a response to 'the present crisis, when wars and rumours seem to be flying

about all over the world'. The author's conclusion, drawing upon the dis

course of national consensus and inclusiveness, was that Britain alone waged war with 'free, willing and self-levied soldiers' and could be proud of her

army (Tit-Bits, 8.183 [March 1885], 2-3). Such material rather gives the lie to

Newnes' comments, cited earlier, as regards the style of his journalism. His

comments might be read as an attempt to characterise his journalistic endeav

ours in terms popular within New Journalism as

against those that character

ised the ebbing political journalistic style.

65. Jonathon Rose, The Edwardian Temperament (Columbus: OSUPress, 1986),

pp. 163-69.

66 Friederichs, p. 97.